Resumen

MIER, Mariela V. De; BORZONE, Ana M.  y  CUPANI, Marcos. Reading fluency in the early grades: relationship between decoding skills, text features and comprehension. A pilot study with Spanish-speaking children. Neuropsicologia Latinoamericana [online]. 2012, vol.4, n.spe, pp. 18-33. ISSN 2075-9479.  http://dx.doi.org/10.5579/rnl.2012.0079.

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between letter naming, isolated word recognition, word reading in text, and reading comprehension, which are all considered critical variables for reading fluency. The analysis of the variation of this relationship in the earliest years of primary school was undertaken. It may be assumed that, if comprehension is evaluated with a complex text, the accurate and rapid word reading might not be enough for comprehension because this process requires other kinds of operation and knowledge that children could not possess. In order to explore the relationships between text features and decoding abilities, Spanish speaking children in second, third, and fourth grades were tested. They were assessed in letter naming, isolated word reading, word reading in texts and comprehension of narrative and expository texts. The results of this study show a difference among groups in all the variables: children´s performance increased throughout the school years. In fourth grade, children reached the highest scores in word reading in texts. The performance of 2nd and 3rd grade groups in decoding task was lower, between 40% and 60% of the total score. Although there were no differences in the number of words read in one minute between narrative and expository texts, there were differences in comprehension: even though the performance is generally low, it was higher in narrative texts than it was in expository texts. These findings could indicate that both accurate and rapid word recognition skills could only explain part of the variation in reading comprehension which might be affected by text variables.

Palabras clave : Reading fluency; Reading aloud; Comprehension; Word reading; Text features.

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